All About Promise Keeping

Promise keeping means making worthwhile promises that you are able to keep, and then actually following through on those promises.
We frequently find ourselves making promises, but for various reasons we cannot or do not keep those promises. To be a great person you must fully understand the importance of promise keeping and must realize those situations where making a promise is appropriate.
There are many types of promises that people make on a daily basis. We make silly promises, bad promises, good promises, and promises about situations that are beyond our control. If we understand the differences among the above types of promises, then we can improve our ability to keep promises.
Telling someone that you will give him or her $1,000,000 for something when you really do not have that much money to give is an example of a silly promise. Bad promises include such things as making a promise to lie for a friend to keep him or her out of trouble, or helping someone cheat on a test. Good promises are those that you can follow-through on and that have an honorable or worthwhile objective, such as completing your chores when asked or paying back someone from whom you borrowed money. Promises about things that are beyond your control include such things as promising someone that it will not rain next week, or that you will catch a home run ball for them. As you can see, we have all made promises that were good, silly, beyond our control, and sometimes bad.
It is important to practice promise keeping with common sense. You may find yourself making promises that you know are silly, bad, or beyond your control but you make them anyway. If you pay attention to the different types of promises that you make and reduce the number of silly, bad, and beyond your control promises until you have totally eliminated these types, then you will begin to master the act of good promise keeping.
The first step to good promise keeping is to have the desire to follow through on every single promise that you make. This is not always an easy goal to achieve right away. To get started, make a list of all of the good promises that you have made recently, but haven’t kept. Then, try to follow through on those promises. From there, begin to make only good promises, and make sure you follow though on them. Before you know it, you’ll become a master at promise keeping and you’ll notice that your friends and family have greater respect for you and your actions.